Stravinsky and the Russian Period

Pieter C. van den Toorn is Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Music of Igor Stravinsky (1983), Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring (1987) and Music, Politics, and the Academy (1995). Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring won the Deems Taylor Award (1989) and the Outstanding Publication Award of the Society for Music Theory (1990). John McGinness is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at the Crane School of Music, State University of New York, Potsdam. His essays and articles on topics including the music of Debussy, Stravinsky and Ives have appeared in Musical Quarterly, Music Theory Spectrum and Cahiers Debussy, among other publications. As a pianist specializing in contemporary music, he has premiered over twenty-five new works and has recorded for CRS and Radio Nederland.

• Introduction; 1. Meter and metrical displacement in Stravinsky; 2. The octatonic scale; 3. A brief survey; 4. Meter, motive, and alignment in Les Noces - Stravinsky's block and layered structures; 5. Melody and harmony in Les Noces; 6. Meter, text, and alignment in Renard (1916) - Stravinsky's 'rejoicing discovery'; 7. Allegro! Renard reconsidered; 8. Melodic repeat structures in the music of Stravinsky, Debussy, and Rimsky-Korsakov - another look at the symphonies of wind instruments (1920); 9. Issues of performance practice and aesthetic belief; 10. Stravinsky and his critics.

'There is a wealth of forensic detail about familiar van den Toornian topics like the octatonic scale or referential collection.' Anthony Gritten, Slavonic and East European Review